As is known in the art, a data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, redundant servers and storage devices, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and security devices (collectively referred to as data center equipment).
As is also known, there is a trend to replace or consolidate multiple data center equipment, such as servers. One technique to consolidate resources is to simulate a hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or other network resources (this method of consolidation may be referred to as “virtualization”). Here, a bank of computing resources (e.g. computing and/or storage devices) and host computers/servers are coupled together through an interface (typically implemented in software). The interface includes “front end” or host computer/server controllers (or storage processors) and “back-end” computing and/or storage device controllers.
The front-end software interface provides users with access to the back-end computing devices. The infrastructure implemented in the back-end is typically transparent to the user and abstracted by the front-end interface (i.e. the interface operates the controllers in such a way that they are transparent to the user and host computer/server). Thus, data (for example) may be stored in, and retrieved from a bank of disk drives in such a way that the host computer/server appears as if it is operating with a single drive. In other words, as long as the user receives the proper services through the virtual front-end, the user may not need to understand how the back-end implements those services. Virtualization technologies may also be used to create virtual desktops, which can then be hosted in data centers and leased to users on a subscription basis.
Such virtual front-ends can provide a user with access to virtual storage. For example, a user may store data onto a virtual hard drive provided by the front end interface. To the user, the virtual hard drive appears as a regular, physical hard drive or other physical storage medium. In the back-end, however, the data may be stored in one or more of a group of networked physical servers working in conjunction to provide a pool of physical storage (i.e. the aforementioned “cloud storage”). Thus, the data stored by a user onto the virtual storage drive may, in the back end, be stored on any one or more of the networked physical servers.
When conventional cloud storage systems deal with a large number of read/write transactions, an undesirably long period of time may be required to complete the transactions. This is due, at least in part, to the amount of overhead which exists in read/write transactions in conventional cloud storage systems. It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a system and technique to reduce the amount of time required to execute read/write transactions between a user and a cloud storage system.